'Sonny Silhouette' (Raich Carter's Soccer Star, 22 November 1952).
Len Ward was a British cartoonist and art editor, active in the 1950s for magazines like Charles Buchan's Football Monthly, Raich Carter's Soccer Star and TV Times. He is most notable for his gag comic 'Sonny Silhouette', which was drawn entirely in silhouette.
Early life and career
Born in London's Islington district in 1924, Leonard William Henry Ward began his career working in the printing industry. He married Betty Stovell in Hackney in 1947 and had two daughters, Sally and Susan. During the 1950s, he lived in the Hackney borough of London.
Soccer magazines
In 1951, Leonard Ward was the main artist for the soccer magazine Charles Buchan's Football Monthly, doing the vast majority of strips, panels and footballers' portraits. Among his comic features for this magazine were the gag strip 'Jenkins' and the adventure serial 'Rex Martin'. He was credited variously as Len Ward, LW and "Nelward". In early 1952-1953, he was present in Raich Carter's Soccer Star magazine with the silhouette gag comic about football player 'Sonny Silhouette' and several stand-alone soccer-related cartoons.
'Rex Martin', from Charles Buchan's Football Monthly (October 1951).
TV Times
By September 1955, Ward was working as the first art editor for TV Times, the London television listings magazine launched with the start of transmissions of the country's first ITV station, Associated-Rediffusion. Ward also drew the 1959, 1962, 1964 and 1965 covers for the annual TV Times Christmas Extra supplement. Among the several cartoonists whose work ran in TV Times in that period were Clew (Clifford Lewis), Larry (Terence Parkes), the Canadian-born Zeke (Arthur Penhale), and the mysterious Scherzo.
Later life
Ward left his editing job when the TV Times went national in 1968, though he still worked as a freelance cartoonist afterwards, doing cartoons for TV Times and other publications like the Mirror. His later work mostly involved humorous greetings cards produced under his company's name "Personal Arts".In the 1980s, Len Ward moved to the village of Whittlesford, near Cambridge, where he commuted to Brentwood, Essex, to do consultant work for the Hussey and Greaves printing company (later Hussey Knights). He lived there until his death in 2001.
'Crackshots'. Cartoon from Raich Carter's Soccer Star (22 November 1952).